


caution: floating children are sadder than they appear

by DestinysBounty (MVPYurio), whichlights



Series: evergreen [2]
Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Adoption, Alternate Universe - Fae, Awkwardness, Fae & Fairies, Fae Magic, M/M, Magic, Trans Female Character, Transphobia, please love eliza as much as we do, this episode on lloyd and micah adopt seven kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-30
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-21 15:04:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11946762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MVPYurio/pseuds/DestinysBounty, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichlights/pseuds/whichlights
Summary: The faeries will take children away to Faerie Land. They ask, and if the child says yes, off they go. They do this with children that are unsafe or unhappy in their current homes.Lloyd is in Georgia to save Eliza.





	caution: floating children are sadder than they appear

Lloyd was  _ not  _ a fan of faerie bureaucracy.

He got it, okay? They had a lot of kids they had to save. At any given moment the list could have anywhere from fifty to five  _ hundred  _ children on it, all of whom would theoretically benefit from being whisked away from whatever sentient chunk of excrement was “caring” for them.

And then, of course, there was the fact that the operative word was “theoretically.”

Most kids didn’t want to go. And that made sense. For sentient chunks of excrement, the parents were usually pretty smart, certainly smart enough to convince the kids that anywhere else would be far, far worse than the crap castle. What that meant, is that about eighty percent of the time, a faerie would go to a child’s house, stay with them for as long as it took for them to make a decision, which could last as long as the entire night, only to have to wipe the child’s memory and leave.

The second part of “theoretically” was that faeries were great at rescuing kids, but not necessarily the best at caring for them. Often times the children were given to one of the care centers, which were far better than both crap castles and the human “foster care” system, but still, those care centers were getting overloaded.

The Office had worked out what they thought was a decent solution. Any child on the waiting list was exactly that—on the waiting list—until a faerie could prove that they could personally care for the child,  _ and  _ give the Office reason to believe that attempting a rescue wouldn’t just be a waste of a night.

So yeah, the bureaucracy did make sense. For all of the irritation it caused, it did seem to solve the overpopulation issues at the care centers.

But it did mean that it took Lloyd two entire weeks of paperwork and begging, for him to be able to rescue Eliza.

Eliza. She was thirteen years old, and the sentient shitfucks that were her birth parents didn’t deserve their daughter at all. Her parents firmly believed they had a son, ignored any of Eliza’s attempts to tell them otherwise, and hurt her all the while.

She’d been  _ begging  _ some being in the sky, if it was the God her parents insisted hated her, or someone else’s God, or just the universe itself, begging someone to take her away. And that was exactly what Lloyd was going to do. 

Lloyd looked at the dark house.  _ Georgia, _ he remembered vaguely,  _ the one-stop shop for disgusting, bigoted human adults,  _ before tapping on the door. It opened soundlessly and closed behind him. Most of the fixtures in the house were iron, at least in part—he had to be careful about that. 

He went to Eliza’s room and stepped in, illuminating the dark room with a soft green glow. She was crying, her head in her hands, sitting on her bed. There were pale scars along her arms. Lloyd gently took her hand, and smiled at her.

To his surprise, she didn’t jolt away. Instead, she stared at his hand for a few seconds, before looking up at him with big black eyes.

“Are you an angel? Are you here because I’m dying?” Eliza whispered.

“What would you be dying of?” Lloyd asked. He scanned her and the room, and nothing  _ seemed  _ deadly, although those scars… 

“Heartbreak.”

Lloyd’s own heart broke a little at that. 

Eliza continued, sniffling, “If you’re an angel, are you here to tell me Heaven won’t let me in? That’s what Mom says.”

“I’m not an angel,” Lloyd said gently. “I’m a faerie.”

“Like… like Tinker Bell?”

“Not exactly,” Lloyd admitted. “I’m here to take you away, if you want.”

“Where? New York? France?”

“If you want to, I’ll take you to the land of the fey.”

Eliza blinked a few times. “What? Like… wait, like in the books? Don’t go into the ring of mushrooms and don’t eat anything or else you’re stuck forever? Wait—are you here to  _ kidnap  _ me? Because if so… can you hurry up?”

“Okay, so some of that was right, some of that was wrong, and some of that… anyway. Okay.” Lloyd sat next to her on the bed. “So yeah, faerie rings are real. People fall into them all the time.” _And vampires,_ he thought, instantly chiding himself for even _going_ there. “And yeah, if you eat certain things you do get stuck. But we don’t kidnap people. We’re not supposed to, anyway. It’s against fey law. We visit kids who have terrible lives and ask if they want to come with us, and if they say yes, we take them, and if no, we wipe their memories and head on our merry way.”

“Technicality,” said Eliza. “Willingly, unwillingly, I want out.”

Lloyd held up a hand. “Okay, okay. Hold on. I’m all for snap-decisions, but at the very least know what’s gonna happen here. This isn’t just some quick visit. If you come with me, it’s a permanent relocation. But in exchange for leaving the human world behind, you get to learn magic, hang out with a bunch of faeries, and be whoever you want to be. No judgment, no hate. Just being yourself.”

Eliza stared at him for a solid ten seconds… and promptly burst into tears.

“Oh, shh, shh, it’s okay,” Lloyd breathed, pulling her into a hug, tracing circles on her back. “I’m right here, Eliza.”

Eliza gasped. “You… you used my name…”

“Well yeah, duh,” said Lloyd. I told you, no judgment, and you can be yourself. That means your name, too. Nobody in Faerie even has to  _ know _ your birth name, not unless you want to share it.”

At that, Eliza clung tighter to him, her sobs becoming even louder. Lloyd pointed his finger at the door, shutting it and casting a quick soundproofing spell. Last thing he needed was these idiot shitstains intruding.

Eliza cried for a solid five minutes, and then was silent for another five. Lloyd continued holding her, silently, allowing her to come to her own decision.

“Take me with you. Now.”

Big shocker right there. “Alright.” Lloyd stood up. “What happens is I have to cast a lot of magic on you for you to be able to pass through into Faerie Land as a citizen who can learn magic and eat the food and be one of us. In order for it to work, you’ll be asleep, but when you wake up, you’ll be in Faerie Land, safe and sound.”

Eliza nodded, lying back down and curling up on her bed for the last time. “Do it.”

Lloyd ran a hand through Eliza’s hair and started humming the spell. It was in the tune of what Eliza would recognize as a human lullaby—which was unfair, seeing as the spell existed first. She drifted off to sleep within minutes, exhausted from crying and the fire-and-shitstorm that was her life. Lloyd scooped her up in his arms, continuing to sing and hum.

_ So I have a new daughter,  _ he mused.  _ I like the sound of that. _

He walked her all the way out the door and halfway down the block when he was almost knocked over by a blur. Eliza was knocked out of his arms, but thankfully the magic around her kept her hovering in the air.

An incredulous voice cut through the night.

“What the quiznak are you doing here?”

~~~~

Micah stared at Lloyd— _ Lloyd _ , of the super pretty green eyes and magic frost powers. He was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, his mouth hanging half open, and there was a floating human child next to him.

“What the quiznak are you doing here?” Micah demanded. “Are you… are you  _ kidnapping  _ a human child? I thought faeries only took human babies, and left changelings in their place.”

“Common misconception. Micah, this is Eliza.” Lloyd gestured to the floating child before pulling her back into the safety of his arms. He planted a soft kiss on her forehead, snuggling her closer. “She’s trans, and this is Georgia. You do the math. Wait, this is Georgia; what are you  _ doing  _ here? Last time we met, you said you were in Central Park!”

“Well, I travel,” Micah snapped. “Wait, you mean her parents are transphobic?”

Lloyd nodded. “Transphobic, abusive assholes. They don’t deserve their daughter, so I’m taking her to Faerie Land. It’s kind of our thing.”

Micah blinked. “Which house?”

“Half a block down, mailbox 6492. Why?”

“I’m going to eat them.”

Lloyd smirked. “Fine by me. Means I don’t have to leave a changeling. And besides, they deserve it. Go ahead.” He looked back down at Eliza, kissing her forehead again. “And then we’ll be off and on our way home, eh kiddo?”

Micah couldn’t help but stand and watch, just for a few seconds. He already had resigned himself to the fact that Lloyd was cute, but watching him cradle a small human child in his arms was something on a completely different level, and he couldn’t look away.

And then he looked away, and had to face that he had been able to all along—he just hadn’t  _ wanted _ to.

So he ran off, promising himself that he would be quick so he could ask Lloyd more questions, and  _ only  _ to ask Lloyd more questions.

It only took him a matter of minutes to get to the house, drain Eliza’s birth parents of blood, and return to the street corner, but just as he approached, there was a  _ twist  _ in the world, and Lloyd and Eliza disappeared in a flash of light, leaving Micah alone with the streetlights and blood on his face.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblrs!
> 
> witchlightsands (rose)
> 
> she-doesnt-even-ninjagohere and mod allura on queenshippingofficial (lia)


End file.
